One of Billions

Dear old and new friends,

The earth’s population is now estimated at over 7 billion and projected to be 9.2 billion by 2050. Scientists using telescope data calculate there are more than 100 billion earth-like planets outside our solar system in our Milky Way galaxy alone. The next few coming years most likely will see scientific confirmation of the existence of another earth like ours. Today consider how catastrophic would be news of such a discovery, how our concept of the world’s significance would shrink, and of the cataclysmic effects on religion…and the Bible’s infallible beliefs about creation and even God! Since the consequences are so shattering, we don’t like to speculate on other possible earths in the Milky Way or that there are over 7 billion other people on our planet. Such thoughts only would shrink us to some teensy weensymicroscopic insignificance.

We are able to normally go about our daily lives feeling good about ourselves because the world we live in isn’t the size of planet Earth. Each of us lives in a world composed of an intimate circle of family and friends whom we know and think we are important, and more significantly, lovable. Sadly, in our crowded faceless society there are loners who live as outsiders suffering psychological problems and feeling isolated, powerless, and of no value. High powered guns empower the emotionally frail who attempt to become famous by their mass murders at some Mall, saying to themselves, “Now the world will know I exist!”

If only each of us knew—and believed—we are not some historic accidents! We each enter this world with a purpose; each one of us is important since we individually bring a unique work-purpose into this world. While at an early age we can desire to be famous or renowned for our great wealth, it most likely will not be our purpose in life. Whatever work or purpose is ours, even if we do not become famous, that task is never something common or mediocre but an uninspiring life work or vocation.

What is or was your purpose? For some you are midway in living out your purpose, for others like seniors your purpose of parenting might be continuing on but on another higher level. Some purposes are for brief periods of your life, for others they are lifelong. If after some reflection you find that you are still searching for yours, know it can appear at any time or anyplace as this story by British author Donald Nicholl shows.

Nicholl tells the story of a man lying desperately ill in a hospital, almost out of his mind with terror and confusion caused by the drugs he was taking. In the midst of his painful darkness he hears a voice in the corridor outside his room that kept repeating over and over, “I’m so bloody lonely, I could cry!” It was the voice of an old miner who was in a hospital for the first time in his life and had been left alone in his wheelchair in the corridor. Then the man, while deep in his own pit of suffering, hearing over and over the old miner’s grief-stricken cries, said, “I’ll go out and sit by him if it is the last thing I do!” He struggled to get out of his bed and went to sit beside the old miner, and two things happened. The old miner was no longer fearfully alone, and man felt liberated from the terror of his sickness.

Paying for Not Playing

Dear old and new friends, “Play, more than piety, more than charity or vigilance,” says the author Tom Robbins, “is what allows human beings to transcend evil.” And the lack of it gives rise to evil, as Psychiatrist Stuart Brown found in his study of 26 convicted murderers who had been deprived of play in their childhoods. Those who did play, however, did so by viciously bullying other children and teasing, even torturing animals! Based on new studies on play, Brown stated the human brain and that of animals strongly suggests it may be as important to life as sleeping and dreaming! That play is as important as sleep I found fascinating as it is typically judged to be nonproductive time. We American descendents of those zealous hard working, somber and cheerless Puritans struggle to make time in our lives for play. Doing so can make us feel guilty of that old indictment, “Stop playing around, and get back to work!” Instead we choose recreation; the very word “re-creation” being pregnant with purpose, and so permissible. Universal is the desire to be seen as attractive and to be liked by others. So “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” is loaded with wisdom for every Jill and Jack since no one desires to be “dull,” which implies boring, uninteresting and bland! Just as the lack of playing has consequences, so does sleep deprivation cause fatal automobile accidents and low productivity at work. Would a study of industrious adults who never played reveal in them foul play? Adult foul or polluted play is cruel teasing, malicious remarks and nasty sarcasm. For any hardworking 24/7, upwardly-mobile person today to take time from work to play on a regular basis would be considered madness—and it may be! G.K. Chesterton said the characteristics that the modern mind prides itself upon are precisely those of madness! Madmen are steadfastly logical, unable to be carefree, relax and laugh at themselves and the world. In short, they can’t play. Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death says, “…to live is to play at the meaning of life…(and engage in) childlike foolishness.” So adults play with “the meaning of life” by foolishness and folly since life is often crazy and irrational. Adults who make or steal time to be playfully foolhardy will find their aging process retarded since playtime is linked to childhood. It can also grant immunity to maladies of our day like melancholic depression and despondency. Play is like air, a worthless necessity of life. So check your agenda for the coming days to see if you have scheduled any time to horse around.

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.